On A Wicked Dawn Read online

  Contents

  The Bar Cynster Family Tree

  HarperCollins e-book extra: From the Lab to the Regency: One Writer’s Travels: An Interview with Stephanie Laurens

  Chapter 1

  He was drunk. Gloriously drunk. More drunk—drunker—than he’d ever been

  Chapter 2

  “Why the museum?” Amelia asked as she approached him.

  Chapter 3

  He led her onto the terrace, where numerous couples were strolling, taking advantage of . . .

  Chapter 4

  The words reached Luc a second too late for him to grab Amelia back.

  Chapter 5

  The surest way to manage Amelia was, not just to keep the reins in his hands, but to use them.

  Chapter 6

  More than enough torture. He doubted she realized the effect she had on him, especially . . .

  Chapter 7

  The evening of the next day loomed as a disaster; if Luc could have avoided the . . .

  Chapter 8

  She’d come prepared. Even so, she would need to take him by surprise.

  Chapter 9

  The morning sun slanting through the uncurtained windows woke her.

  Chapter 10

  “There you are, m’lord—that ought to do it.” Luc accepted the bouquet of apricot and yellow . . .

  Chapter 11

  That evening, Amelia and her mother attended Lady Hogarth’s musicale.

  Chapter 12

  The next morning dawned fine; a playful breeze wafted about the lawns and set the tone for . . .

  Chapter 13

  He had absolutely no idea what Mrs. Higgs and Cook had prepared; he paid no attention . . .

  Chapter 14

  That revelation did not buoy his confidence. Some hours later, sitting in the breakfast parlor . . .

  Chapter 15

  The idea inhabiting her mind had not been the same as the one inhabiting

  Chapter 16

  “I’m going riding—I thought I’d go to that place on the river we used to go to years ago.”

  Chapter 17

  Men!

  Thank heavens she was stubborn.

  Chapter 18

  The next morning saw the first of the visitations customary in county circles when welcoming . . .

  Chapter 19

  They didn’t put it into words, but come the morning they had a tacit agreement that . . .

  Chapter 20

  By general consensus, they waited until Emily, Anne, Portia, Penelope, and Miss Pink . . .

  Chapter 21

  “A word of advice, ma petite.”

  Amelia glanced up from the lists scattered . . .

  Chapter 22

  The day flew. No one stopped for luncheon; Higgs set out a cold collation in the dining room . . .

  Chapter 23

  Helena watched as a cloaked figure stepped gingerly from the depths of the wardrobe.

  About the Author

  Other Books by Stephanie Laurens

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  From the Lab to the Regency:

  One Writer’s Travels

  Part Two

  An interview by Claire E. White

  Australia’s Stephanie Laurens was born on the island known to the ancients as Serendip, or Paradise (and today known as the less-than-paradisal Sri Lanka) and spent four formative years (’78-’81) living in England, in the Kentish countryside. Her residence there was a sixteenth-century oast house, right next door to a first-century Roman villa and just down the lane from a castle begun in the fourteenth century and completed in the seventeenth. Stephanie’s time in England gave her firsthand experience of the scenery, the grand houses, and the English weather that would contribute to the richness of her historical romances, all set in the English Regency — that period, 1811-1820, during which George, Prince of Wales (later King George IV), served as regent for his mentally ill father, King George III.

  Stephanie trained as a research scientist and has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. After nineteen years in medical research (during which time she rose to head her own laboratory), Stephanie decided that too much of her time was spent on administrative, non-creative labors. In looking for a more satisfying career, she started writing novels. Her first work, Tangled Reins, a Regency romance, was published in 1992 by Harlequin Mills & Boon, London. Seven books followed for HM&B and they were also published in Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Australia, the Philippines, the U.S., and Canada. Stephanie then turned to writing longer historical romances, still set in the Regency but specifically tailored for American readers.

  Her first such romance was Captain Jack’s Woman [Avon, 1997; HarperCollins e-book, 2002] which received a rave review and an “Outstanding” rating of six stars from Affaire de Coeur — only the second book ever to have achieved this rating. Romantic Times rated Captain Jack’s Woman as “exceptional,” and dubbed Stephanie “a bright new star of the adventure romance genre.”

  Stephanie is best known for her Bar Cynster novels. The first six Cynster books tell the stories of six cousins: Devil’s Bride (1998); A Rake’s Vow (1998); Scandal’s Bride (1999); A Rogue’s Proposal (1999); A Secret Love (2000); All About Love (2001).

  “Each book has as its hero one of the male members of the infamous Bar Cynster family,” Stephanie explains. “Each novel tells the tale of how the hero meets his fated match, how he woos and weds his lady, how he falls victim to the inescapable fate that overtakes all Cynster men — despite their strong resistance, all Cynsters are fated to love.”

  The Promise in a Kiss (2001) is the story of Helana and Sebastian, and the beginning of the Cynster dynasty. On a Wild Night (2002) and On a Wicked Dawn (2002) tell the stories of the Cynster twins, Amanda and Amelia.

  All About Passion (2001) is the story of Cynster rival Gyles Frederick Rawlings, fifth Earl of Chillingworth, and his enchantment by a “gypsy in green”. . .

  [All ten titles are available as HarperCollins e-books.]

  Stephanie lives in a leafy suburb of Melbourne with her husband and two daughters. She talked with us about her career change from cancer researcher to romance novelist and gave us some insight on how she creates her romantic treasures.

  ~

  HarperCollins e-books editor’s note: The interview that follows commenced in Amanda’s e-book, On a Wild Night, and concludes in Amelia’s — this e-book — On a Wicked Dawn.

  ~

  Claire E. White: What are your pet peeves in reading romance novels?

  Stephanie Laurens: Impossibilities. I can stretch my imagination with the best of them, but impossibilities I can’t accept. I don’t mean just material impossibilities, but social, emotional, and motivational impossibilities. When a novel derives from a premise that just couldn’t have happened, then I really find it difficult to read, other than by considering it a fantasy. This occurs most often with historicals, of course, but some contemporaries also suffer from emotional or motivational implausibility that goes too far into impossibility.

  My other personal pet peeve is weak principal characters who wait for the next installment of the “action plot” to get them moving. I suspect this means weak emotional motivation. I don’t respond to romances that are action-plot-driven, as distinct from principally character- or emotional-plot-driven.

  Claire E. White: How do you approach the research needed to write historical fiction?

  Stephanie Laurens: In writing Regencies, or historicals set in the Regency, I have relied on what I have absorbed through my reading over the past thirty years, which has included a very large number of British Regencies, and British historical texts. When I use any specific factual point in a draft, one that I haven’t used before or don’t k
now for a fact is right, then I check it in historical texts or reference books as I work over the draft.

  Claire E. White: Have your research skills learned as a scientist translated to skills that help you when doing historical research?

  Stephanie Laurens: Oh, yes! Having used all sorts of resources for scientific information for years, hunting up historical information is really no different. But that isn’t the major overlap between scientific research and writing. The most useful scientific skill apropos of writing is analysis. Scientists analyze everything, it’s an automatic instinct.

  My husband once came into the study when I was working on a manuscript, and laughed, saying: “Anyone could tell instantly that you were a scientist!” This was because I had a huge sheet of graph paper spread out, and was graphing the whole book, page by page, as to action, dialogue, monologue, narrative description, point of view, emotional intensity, etc, etc. I did that for quite a few books and have now trained myself to be mentally “alert” if I exceed certain parameters — the ones I know will keep the pace up and the reader absorbed.

  And then, once I’d achieved repeated success, I had to discover how I’d done it, so I could keep doing it. That took another round of different types of analysis, both of my works and those of other successful authors. I now know what sort of structure I instinctively use, and how and why it works for me, so I can assure myself as I’m writing the first draft, which I sort of “write as it comes,” that I’m working within this basic structure, so all will be all right in the end. That structure, and the parameters I worked out first, have proved excellent guides in helping me convert first drafts into final polished submissions. So being a scientist has helped enormously, in more ways than one.

  Claire E. White: Do you use the internet for research?

  Stephanie Laurens: Not extensively. I’m still a bookworm at heart, and I like browsing around libraries. You never know what you might find, and I need to keep feeding my mind.

  Claire E. White: Your publisher, Avon Books, is based in New York. Is it difficult coordinating with a publisher who is in another country?

  Stephanie Laurens: Actually, I’m not sure it’s not easier being in another country. That way, everything is in writing, of one sort or another. New York and Melbourne are fourteen to sixteen hours apart, which makes intelligent phone conversations exceedingly difficult. You quickly learn the details of courier deliveries. I’ve only ever worked as an author with London and New York, and have found them equally easy. But I think the most useful aspect of writing in Melbourne is the isolation — I can manage the information influx better, as there’s very little, if any, relevant local activities or magazines to tempt me.

  Claire E. White: What is the market like for authors of romantic fiction in Australia?

  Stephanie Laurens: First, there are no publishers of romance, per se, in Australia — all romance novels come from either the UK or North America. So for an author who wants to write romance, it’s either London, New York, or Toronto. As for the romance market here, it’s more than a decade behind the US, which means the big explosion is yet to come.

  Claire E. White: What do you hope your readers take away from your books?

  Stephanie Laurens: I have this aim: To leave my readers with one of those big, silly smiles on their faces.

  Claire E. White: What do you enjoy most about being a writer?

  Stephanie Laurens: Learning that I succeeded in my aim. I get a lot of satisfaction from hearing that I gave some other woman a few hours of fantasy, a brief period of escape, and left her feeling good.

  Claire E. White: What do your former colleagues think about your career change?

  Stephanie Laurens: Most are fascinated — some are actually proud. Even the males, and, of course, it’s largely a male preserve, are truly interested in an intrigued sort of way. I think they’d like to suspect that I was mad, but they knew me for too long to doubt my sanity.

  Claire E. White: Does your husband read your books? What does he think about the sex scenes?

  Stephanie Laurens: My husband has never read any of my books — nor has any other male that I know. I don’t actually expect them to — I specifically write for women, in ways that women understand. I don’t write for men. When they have tried to read me, they usually can’t get past the first few pages, and when you discuss it, you find they’re missing all the “tag lines,” the emotional interplay and the body language, etc. They literally can’t figure out what the book is about, because they don’t see an emotional plot as relevant or sufficiently important to write a book about. So my husband hasn’t read any of my sex scenes, although he knows they are there. I don’t know that he has any “thoughts” about them at all.

  Claire E. White: When you’re not reading romances, what else do you like to read?

  Stephanie Laurens: I read a lot of genre fiction, and always have. I read mostly crime and fantasy fiction. I love finding good authors, ones whose works work for me, and hunting down their books. Occasionally, I’ll read a nonfiction work, but that’s rare — usually only if it’s about something intriguing and/or romantic. As I said above, feeding the mind.

  Claire E. White: What advice would you give to aspiring romance authors trying to crack the historical romance market?

  Stephanie Laurens: Find your voice — not anyone else’s, but yours. Then tell your story, the one you’ve been given to tell. That’s the story you love, the story that moves you. Take the creating one step at a time, but remember: you can only find your voice by writing the book. So write the book — and then rewrite and rewrite, by yourself, until your voice rings clearly. Until your book sings. Then it’ll sell.

  Claire E. White: What is the most valuable lesson you learned since you became a novelist?

  Stephanie Laurens: It’s encapsulated in the above, and is basically my writing motto, not blazoned on my wall but blazoned across my inner eye. Write the book. Nothing else matters — just write the book. And make every book you write your best ever.

  ~

  Excerpts from an interview with Stephanie Laurens by Claire E. White, editor-in-chief, The Internet Writing Journal®, http://www.writerswrite.com. Edited for this HarperCollins e-book edition.

  Chapter 1

  Mount Street, London

  3 A.M., May 25, 1825

  He was drunk. Gloriously drunk. More drunk—drunker—than he’d ever been. Not that he made a habit of inebriation, but last night, or more specifically and especially this morning, was a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. After eight long years, he was free.

  Lucien Michael Ashford, sixth Viscount Calverton, sauntered along Mount Street, nonchalantly twirling his ebony cane, a smile of unfettered joy curving his lips.

  He was twenty-nine, yet today qualified as the first of his adult life, the first day he could call said life his own. Even better, as of yesterday, he was rich. Fabulously, fantastically—legally—wealthy. There was not a great deal more he could think of to wish for. If he hadn’t been afraid of falling on his face, he would have danced down the deserted street.

  The moon was out, lighting the pavements, casting deep shadows. About him, London lay sleeping, but the capital, even at this hour, was never truly silent; from a distance, distorted by the stone facades all around, came the jingle of harness, the hollow clop of hooves, a disembodied call. Although even here, in the most fashionable quarter, danger sometimes lurked in the shadows, he felt no threat. His senses were still operational, and despite his state he’d taken care to walk evenly; any watching him with felonious intent would see a tall, sufficiently well built, gracefully athletic gentleman swinging a cane that might, and indeed did, conceal a swordstick, and move on to more likely prey.

  He’d left his club in St. James and the company of a group of friends half an hour ago, electing to walk home the better to clear his head of the effects elicited by a quantity of the very best French brandy. His celebrations had been restrained owing to the simple fact that none of said friends—
indeed no one other than his mother and his wily old banker, Robert Child—knew anything of his previous state, the dire straits to which he and his family had been brought by his sire prior to his death eight years before, the perilous situation from which he’d spent the last eight years clawing his way back, and from which yesterday he’d finally won free.

  The fact they’d had no idea what he was celebrating had not prevented his friends from joining him. A long night filled with wine, song, and the simple pleasures of male companionship had ensued.

  A pity his oldest friend, his cousin Martin Fulbridge, now Dexter, earl of, wasn’t presently in London. Then again, Martin was doubtless enjoying himself at his home in the north, wallowing in the benefits accruing to a recently married man; he had married Amanda Cynster a week ago.

  Grinning to himself, Luc mentally—superiorly—shook his head over his cousin’s weakness, his surrender to love. Reaching his house, he turned to the shallow steps leading to the front door—his head spun for an instant, then righted. Carefully, he walked up the steps, halted before the door, then hunted in his pocket for his keys.

  They slipped through his fingers twice before he grasped them and hauled them forth. The ring in his palm, he shuffled the keys, frowning as he tried to identify the one for the front door. Then he found it. Grasping it, he squinted, guiding it to keyhole . . . after the third try, it slid home; he turned and heard the tumblers fall.

  Returning the keys to his pocket, he grasped the knob and sent the door swinging wide. He stepped over the threshold—

  A dervish erupted from the black hole of the area steps—he caught only a fleeting glimpse, had only an instant’s warning before the figure barreled past him, one elbow knocking him off-balance. He staggered and fetched up against the hall wall.

  That brief human contact, deadened by layers of fabric though it was, sent sensation rushing through him, and told him unequivocally who the dervish was. Amelia Cynster. Twin to his cousin’s new wife, longtime friend of his family’s whom he’d known since she was in nappies. An as-yet-unmarried female with a backbone of steel. Cloaked and hooded, she plunged into the dim hall, came to an abrupt halt, then whirled and faced him.